


Spirit Love

by mythras_fire



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Drinking & Talking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:16:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think your spirit is in love with my spirit."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirit Love

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Plotless wonder. epic!fail on my part to write drunken characters. It’s like I had short-term memory loss while writing this (although in my defense it was written over the course of a month or more) so I kept remembering they were supposed to be drunk and then I’d forget the next time I wrote something. *rolls eyes at self* so um, ye be warned. 3,850 words.  
>  **Disclaimer:** I’m a lying bag of bones.

*****

Colin, Bradley, Katie, and Angel went out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day after a long hard day of filming. Colin and Katie had to put up with all of Bradley's bad Irish jokes— “What’s Irish and stays out all night? Patty O'Furniture!"—; Angel had to make a conscious effort to stop rolling her eyes before they rolled right out of her head.

Bradley wanted to know why Americans drank green beer on St. Patrick's Day and kept peppering Colin with questions like he was a font of knowledge for all things Irish.

"How the fuck should I know why the sodding Americans do anything, much less why they dye their beer green?!" Colin burst out exasperatedly.

Angel, worldly woman that she was, added in helpfully, "I read that they dye a whole section of the river green in Chicago."

Katie almost spit her beer back into her glass as Bradley's head swerved to the right to look at Angel with rapt attention. He had started the night off with tequila shots so he was just a wee bit plastered already and had turned into a hyper, raving inquirer of completely useless information. Who knew?

"Really? What the fuck, man."

Colin was in the middle of downing the rest of his first pint of Guinness - he was Irish after all - when Bradley swiveled his entire upper body sideways in the booth so he could resume asking Colin asinine questions about leprechauns: "Why are they always so angry? Is it because they're so small and have inferiority complexes?”; four-leaf clovers: "Have you ever found one, Colin? Myself and me mates, we used to hunt for them every year but we never found any so we figured maybe you had to actually be in Ireland or be Irish to find any"; and why the Irish said 'wee' when they really just meant 'little'.

Colin put on his best puppy-dog eyes and silently pleaded for Katie and Angel to distract Bradley before he got beer dumped over his head. Katie laughingly obliged him, and, getting Angel to hold up their menu to block the view from the aisle, whispered, "Hey, Bradley, I've got a treat for you," and when Bradley's eyes lit up and he turned to her in mid-babble, she flashed him. It was just her bra underneath, a classy black lace affair, but it did the trick because Bradley's words died on his lips and he was speechless for a good five minutes afterward.

Five minutes of blissful peace and quiet.

"God how I love your magnificent breasts," Colin sighed happily, having quite enjoyed the show himself. Katie beamed at him while Angel giggled and Bradley just sat there quietly sipping at the beer they'd given him after confiscating his remaining tequila shots - "Ok, you are now officially banned from ordering tequila shots" had been Colin's exact words, accompanied by the girls' enthusiastic head nods of approval - eyes glued to Katie's chest.

Two hours and three pints of Guinness later, however, Colin was starting to find Bradley rather... edible. He had taken to nibbling on the shell of Bradley's ear every few minutes, usually while Bradley, who had calmed down and was now just pleasantly drunk, was trying to talk. Katie and Angel found it cute and endearing that Colin could go from wanting to dump beer on his boyfriend's head to wanting to lick it off of him (the girls had discouraged that idea) in such a short span of time.

Colin and Bradley had been dancing around each other all first season, both liking the other but too afraid to find out if the feeling was mutual and too oblivious to see what everyone had known since Colin came to Bradley's rescue in the middle-of-the-night-bathtub-spider adventure. They'd been going out for several months now and shagging each other's brains out for slightly longer than that. It took them a couple of weeks of occasionally spending the night together and filming the next day to realize that their working relationship wasn't suffering before they threw all caution to the wind and stopped going back to their separate rooms (besides, this way Bradley had Colin at the ready in case any more spiders broke into his room).

Katie and Angel had mostly been amusing themselves on their side of the booth, chatting about the hot guys from the props dept or the last time they went shopping in Paris when they had a weekend off from filming, and other stuff that Colin only half-heard. They were far more sober than was entirely proper. Bloody women and their bloody ability to make one pint last for-bloody-ever.

"Gonna finish that, luv?" Bradley said, breaking into his thoughts. Colin looked down at the mostly empty glass forgotten in front of him and pushed it into the hand Bradley didn't have wrapped around Colin's waist.

"Looks like it's time to go, Colin's tank is full," Katie said, watching the exchange.

"You know, that's pretty impressive for such a skinny bloke," Angel commented as they stood up to put their jackets on.

"You should see him eat when he's really hungry. Even I can't figure out where he puts it all," Bradley chimed in, helping a droopy-looking Colin out of the booth.

“Couldn't you guys have the decency to at least wait until after I've passed out to start talking about me?" he whined as he lost the battle finding his way into his hoodie. "Braaaad-ley?"

Bradley turned and just barely managed to stifle a laugh at the sight of his boyfriend, head stuck in the body of the hoodie, one arm sticking out at a funny angle.

"Yes, luv?"

"Um, could usesome help here," came the muffled, half-slurred reply.

Angel and Katie just smiled at the two men and made their way out of the pub to wait.

"What am I going to do with you?" Bradley said sweetly as he pulled the hoodie down over Colin's head and kissed the lips that were revealed to him. Colin smiled into the kiss and sighed.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll think of something... fun," he replied, his voice dropping in pitch on the word 'fun', making Bradley's stomach twitch at the promise in that tone.

He groaned quietly as Colin winked at him and wobbled his way out the door. Lately even a single, completely innocent word from Colin, if said in the way he'd just intoned the word 'fun', could turn Bradley's insides to mush and his cock to stone. He was sure that couldn't be good for his health. Or, perhaps, it would save him the cost of going to a gym, seeing as Colin could make Bradley's heart rate spike at the drop of a hat, or more likely, pants. There had been many a time this season where every available door with a lock on the inside had been discovered and utilized. Bradley shook his head and took a deep breath before joining the others outside.

Last time he checked, it was still frowned upon to shag someone in public.

He adjusted the growing tightness in his jeans and came up to take Colin's hand as they started through the park. It separated the pub from their hotel down the street, across the bridge spanning the river that ran through the town, and at this hour of night the park looked very peaceful, dew forming on the grass, swings in the children's area swaying gently in the breeze.

Colin started to perk up a little as they walked through the brisk March air. Rainclouds obscured most of the night sky, the moon peeking out from behind, casting a pale silver glow upon the reflective river surface. Colin began swinging the hand holding Bradley's in low arcs, just for fun. He got fidgety quite easily, a trait Bradley had always found entertaining, especially when he was trying to suppress it. It was like there was a spirit inside him trying to get out through any available limb. If he tried keeping his legs still, the spirit would travel up to this arms and his fingers would start tapping to some musical beat in his head.

***

Bradley had tried holding down both of Colin's arms and legs once, just to see what would happen, and he was pleasantly amused to see that Colin's foot started randomly tapping against the headboard (they had been rather energetic in their love-making earlier; Bradley had been lucky the bed hadn't just given out completely). It wasn't so much that Bradley had made a show of holding his boyfriend's arms and legs down to see what happened, it was just a lucky coincidence that he was still cognizant enough to notice the tapping foot from his position collapsed on top of Colin, spent and with no desire to move.

He had been murmuring out loud to himself one night about Colin's spirit being particularly energetic and Colin had overheard him. It took 20 minutes and a wrestling match on the bed (during which Bradley still claims Colin cheated somehow to win) for Colin to squeeze out of him what he had been nattering on about.

When Bradley had finished telling him about his rambunctious little spirit, Colin had lain there, poised above him where they had stopped wrestling, looking contemplatively into Bradley's sparkling blue eyes.

"I think your spirit is in love with my spirit."

"How do you figure I have a spirit, I don't fidget like I'm a caffeine addict," Bradley pouted, completely missing the most important part of Colin's declaration.

"You do. Your spirit lives in your beautiful blue eyes. I can gauge every emotion flitting across your face in those beautiful blue eyes. Your spirit is especially brilliant when you smile at me, laugh at something I've said, usually to my utter consternation, but most of all just after we've made love and your eyes look into mine and they're happy."

Bradley had not moved a muscle since Colin began speaking, his eyes riveted on Colin's own cerulean blue ones, struck speechless.

"So, as I was saying, your spirit is in love with my spirit," Colin repeated as he leaned down until their noses touched and their vision blurred.

"And you know what?" Colin whispered.

"What?" Bradley managed to whisper back.

"My spirit is in love with your spirit, too."

Before Bradley could respond, Colin closed the distance and kissed him.

***

As they made their way past the swings, Colin suddenly detoured from the path, effectively dragging Bradley after him, their hands still being entwined.

"Let's go for a swing!" Colin exclaimed excitedly.

Like a young child, he was.

Katie and Angel turned around to see Colin plopping himself down onto one of the swings followed immediately by a string of curses lamenting the wet patch that was going to show on the seat of his pants when he stood up.

Ok, make that a foul-mouthed young child.

Bradley was laughing at him as he smartly turned his swing over once and sat down on the dry side.

"Goodnight, boys," Katie called over her shoulder as she and Angel continued their walk to the hotel. Angel waved to them and Colin waved back, "Goodnight, girls!"

They started swinging lazily back and forth, their legs and arms calling on muscle memory from childhood, a rhythm forming as they started to soar higher.

"Race you to the top!" Colin yelled over in Bradley's direction. He was not 2 feet away but Colin felt that yelling was more effective. That, and he was drunk.

"You're on! But I'll tell you right now that you're not going to win, you scrawny little shite."

"Oh yeah, says who?"

"Says the 5 stone [70lbs] I've got on you, gives me greater momentum."

"Bollocks. If we were moving forward, sure, but we're not, and as you can see, I'm already going higher than you because I'm not dragging all that extra flab around with me," Colin stuck his tongue out at Bradley as he began kicking his legs with more vigor, leaning farther back in the swing to push himself higher on the down-swing.

"Oi! I do NOT have flab, you git, and you know it!"

And the race was on. Both boys, erm, I mean, men, were pushing with their legs and pulling with their arms as they swung higher and faster.

Luckily for them, the swing set was built for older children, but still, children, and so began to creak a little under the dual strain of its riders.

After a couple minutes of furious swinging by both actors, they reached as high as they could go vertically without falling out of their seats. So they just swung for a bit in a free-float, arguing over who had swung higher.

"Ok, here's how we'll settle this. Whoever can jump farther out of their seat wins," Colin said.

"Right. On three. One… Two… Three…"

And Colin went flying out of his swing, arms flailing, shouting nonsense with gleeful abandon, to come down to the sand in a rather gangly heap, rolling a few times before ending up on his back with an "oompf" whoosh of breath.

"Ow," Colin muttered to himself before looking around for Bradley to be expressing a similar sentiment from his own hard landing. But instead he found his boyfriend still in his swing, now drifting slowly back and forth, head resting against one of the chains, a devilish smirk on his handsome face.

"Woohoo! I win, you tosser! Didn't even make it out of your swing. What's the matter, too scared?" Colin gloated from the sand.

Bradley ignored the bait. "No, I just didn't want to risk having to tell the director why I had a broken arm or twisted ankle. 'Because myself and Colin went out drinking on St. Patrick's Day and then jumped out of the swings in the park on the way home' does not really sound like a reason that would keep me from getting sacked, that's why. Plus, it was way more fun watching you go flying through the air with the greatest of ease," he smirked as Colin got up, stumbled once, then brushed himself off once he was upright. He came over to Bradley's swing and caught the chains as he swung forward.

"I amuse you, do I?"

"Immensely," Bradley smiled sweetly as he reached up to brush some sand from his lover's forehead. His fingers danced over Colin's ridiculously high, gorgeous cheekbones, mapping out a route to his lips, flushed red from the exertion of swinging.

"Have I told you," Bradley whispered as he drew Colin forward by the front of his hoodie, kissing him lightly on the lips, "how much that turns me on?"

In response, Colin returned those little kisses with a passionate big one, gripping the chains more tightly as he climbed onto Bradley's lap right there on the swing. He needed to be closer to him. As close as he could get.

They had to break the kiss to get one of his legs unstuck as he placed them around either side of Bradley's waist. Once he was settled, Bradley's arms wrapped securely around his back holding their bodies together. This brought their cocks into glorious, if denim-covered, contact and both let out a sharp little gasp. They almost knocked heads in their hurry to resume their kiss.

The friction was delectable. Bradley dug his feet into the sand in a vain effort to push himself further into Colin's body. The comical thing was that he had forgotten they were sitting in a moving swing which didn't exactly help things. Bradley groaned in frustration as he latched onto Colin's neck, sending vibrations shivering down Colin's skin.

"What is it?" Colin murmured, tilting his head more to the side to allow him better access.

"Not exactly the best place to be doing this, bloody swing keeps moving." Bradley grumbled.

Colin laughed and pushed his feet into the sand, sending the swing forwards a little. Bradley had to grasp at the chains quickly before they tumbled out backwards.

"I think it's a _mah-velous place, dahling!_ " Colin laughed again at Bradley's sulking expression. He caught Bradley's protruding lower lip between his teeth and pulled slightly as they rocked back and forth in the swing. His tongue invaded Bradley's mouth and he suddenly forgot what he was supposed to be complaining about.

When Bradley pulled back to regain his breath he remembered his complaint and so stuck his feet out to drag them to a halt. Before Colin could protest, he let go of the chains and replaced his hands on each cheek of Colin's ass and tugged.

Hard.

Colin moaned harshly as their cocks rubbed together against each other's thigh.

"Fuck, that feels good."

Bradley did it again, squeezing his fingers into the denim stretched tightly over Colin's practically non-existent ass.

"Well I'm glad you can still feel your ass. Mine's been asleep for a good five minutes now."

"Awww, poor Bradley's ass," Colin cooed, trying to lean over Bradley's shoulder to look down his back," It must feel so neglected."

Bradley mumbled "It doesn't feel anything. It's asleep," as he had to grab on to the chains again as Colin's weight pushed him off-balance. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to push us out of the swing."

Colin giggled as his hands squirreled their way down his back, sneaking into his jeans pockets. "Fine with me. I'd have this nice cushy ass to land on." He pulled his head back to look in Bradley's eyes with an evil smirk on his face. His right leg had just randomly started tapping out a steady rhythm into the sand where it was holding them still. "All that padding, you know."

Bradley's eyes went huge and Colin grinned like a maniac before throwing his head back to laugh like one, too.

The next thing Colin knew, he was lying in the sand, arms sprawled out to the side, legs at ridiculous angles up in the air.

He looked up, confused, coughing a little from having the wind knocked out of him, to see Bradley leaning over him with a smug look on his face.

"Prat," Colin muttered sullenly.

At that moment, the clouds above them burst open and Colin's eyes stuttered shut as raindrops started pouring down onto his face.

"Come on, let's get going, luv," Bradley said, still smiling, sweetly now. He pulled Colin up, brushed sand from his backside, pulled his hood over his head and kissed the rain off his nose and eyes, placating him easily.

Colin leaned his head on Bradley's shoulder, left arm wrapped lightly around his waist as they meandered down the cobblestone path, paying no real attention to how wet they were getting. "Didn't know your spirit was such a prat, too. Seems you're a bad influence."

"Well then there's no hope for your spirit, is there? We'll have to send it to school on the short bus."

"Just what are you implying, Mr. James?" Colin huffed, trying to sound snotty and uppercrust.

"That your spirit's a little on the daft side, Mr. Morgan. Short attention span. Fidgets all day. Should probably be checked out clinically, sounds like it could have ADD," Bradley said conversationally as he fished their room key out of his pocket once they reached their floor of the hotel.

Colin stuck his tongue out at Bradley and shoved his way into the room first.

"Annnd I rest my case," Bradley smirked, closing the door and tossing the room key onto the dresser.

The sound of the bath being drawn drifted in from the bathroom and for the first time Bradley noticed how wet his clothes were. He stripped off his jacket and shirt, leaving his pants on for the moment, and threw them into the corner of the bathroom.

Colin was just setting the temperature as he finished undressing. He was studiously ignoring Bradley's presence, fiddling with the hotel bath salts provided.

Bradley walked up and embraced his boyfriend from behind, resting his chin in the crook of his neck. He inhaled deeply and audibly, the smell of the moist air, Guinness, and the earthy scent that was Colin alone invading his senses.

Colin breathed in deeply too but otherwise made no move, bath salts still in hand.

"I love you," Bradley whispered into his hair, voice serious and blunt.

Colin fidgeted with the container, tilting it until some poured out and made the water froth a bit.

"My daft spirit, too?" he whispered back, a little smile on his lips that Bradley could hear as clearly as if he were looking at it.

"Your daft spirit, too. Wouldn't have it any other way. We'll enroll it in the best schools there are and it will outshine everyone else's spirit in no time."

"And then it can take your spirit to Prat Management classes!" Colin said enthusiastically as he turned the water off and stepped in, gasping at the steaming water turning his legs red.

Bradley rolled his eyes as he went about divesting himself of his pants and boxers, belatedly remembering that his shoes were still on, making Colin laugh as he hopped around the small bathroom on one foot trying not to fall over.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who's daft around here," He giggled.

Bradley splashed him with some bath water in response after finally managing to pull his foot out of the tangled mess his pants had become and slipped into the tub opposite Colin.

"There is no such class," he said stubbornly.

"Sure there is, 'Prats Anonymous' it's called," Colin said grandiosely, fanning his hand from one side of the tub to the other in an arch, as if pointing out a neon sign on a billboard.

Bradley laughed as he shook his head and grabbed the soap. He started washing Colin's feet, tickling him unintentionally at first, and then doing it on purpose just to piss Colin off.

Colin retorted by tickling the underside of Bradley's knees and soon it seemed like there was more water on the floor than in the tub from all the thrashing around the two men were doing, trying to avoid and tickle each other at the same time.

At one point Colin pointed over Bradley's shoulder with a horrified look on his face and exclaimed loudly, "look out, Bradley! Spider!"

To which Bradley shrieked like a girl and practically launched himself onto Colin's lap on the other side of the large bathtub before looking back over his shoulder to find the intruding spider nowhere in sight.

Colin was howling with laughter when Bradley turned back around to face him. He gathered together what was left of his dignity and placed his hands on either side of Colin’s head, staring into his lover's beautiful blue eyes.

"I amuse you, do I?"

"Immensely," Colin smiled sweetly as he pulled Bradley fully on top of him, determined to finish what they had started earlier in the park.

♥ The End ♥


End file.
